


in the afterwards

by Missy



Category: WALL-E (2008)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Nature, Post-Canon, Yuletide Madness 2015, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5528369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wal-E and EVE, after the landing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the afterwards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChokolatteJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/gifts).



Mornings are different on Earth. They have special things like weather, and temperature, things that Wall-E’s memory banks still recall from the earlier years. It's different. Strange. A soft trilling sound alerts Wall-E to the difference in the atmosphere; the newness of companionship. “Eveeeuh?” he asks once.

“Wall-e!” she trills back happily, and at once they’re off, exploring this new world re-formed from the ashes and scraps of the old.

There are soft-smelling, bright-colored things sprouting from the ground. Wall-E poked one cautiously with his pincers and it released a delicious scent, and EVE just avoided brushing the colored petals with her bright, sizzling laser. 

There was grass now, too, that the humans had begun hauling away the trash and planting more of these green things. It felt soft and good against Wall-E’s treds, and he and EVE lie against it and look up at the same stars that he’d sighed at so many years before.

They try climbing trees together – which is hard to do when you have treads for feet and pincers for hands. EVE beats him handily, but helps him climb to a branch, where they can smell the clean air and hear birds chirping.

It’s so different from what he remembers of living on the planet before – it’s so warm, and even the sky is a different color, a pretty shade he’s never seen.

He asks EVE what the color is. “Blue is the color of Earth’s sky,” her memory banks tell him. Blue – he really likes the sound of that word. 

Together they explore the limits of the city, careful not to leave their human friends too far behind. It’s strange, the loyalty he feels toward them – when once he’d had no sense of connection to anything, when once he’d been a roamer searching the world alone. But he’ll never be alone again, he knows that for certain now.

There are also animals now. Wall-E had never seen those before, but suddenly they are everywhere – cats that haughtily stare at him from the windows of the half-finished houses, and dogs who run at their master’s heels, and pigs and cattle that oink and moo contentedly from their paddocks. There are even horses now, who bow and snuff curiously at Wall-E’s wide eyes and let him ride for a jouncing distance on their backs.

One of them deigns to take Wall-E and EVE far from the bustle of the encampment, off to the old places, the abandoned city that the humans have barely begun to excavate. There, Wall-E remembers too clearly the past that once darkened his days. 

It’s a lot brighter in his old hovel now, thanks to the sunlight streaming down on them. He scoots to the old place, the home he had maintained for so many years, making clicking sounds of approval as he found his old things. Did she remember when they’d settled together to watch old movies? She smiles. Yes, she seems to.

They settle together in front of the tiny TV set, the old tape playing a grand waltz, the old memories slipstreaming beautifully between them.

 

*** 

Among all of the many beautiful things that delight Wall-E on this brand-new planet he now calls home, sunlight is his absolute favorite. Even when Earth was at its worst there was always light, once red and thin and harsh to his eye sensors; now bright and beautiful, golden pale or bright white. This is what humans had seen a millennium ago, and now it lit EVE’s face up like a roman candle in the cool morning light.

Wall-E would watch her quietly as she hovered about, on a mission from one of the humans or on a terrestrial exploration of her own. He would often imagine what it would have been like for robots younger than him, robots made back in the 40s who lacked even feet, to dance among the dewdrops as EVE does. 

They’re lucky – extremely lucky. And he’s quite aware of that fact.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you have a great Yuletide!


End file.
